The Dancehall Years Read online

  Coals to Newcastle, I’d say, says Isabelle.

  What does that mean? says Maya.

  It means I brought you something you already had lots of.

  But none of these can see.

  That’s true.

  Besides her temp secretarial work out at the university, Gwen’s signed up to take some courses in the Education Dept. Jenny’s due home by the time Maya gets back from day camp the afternoon Auntie decides to head over to Bowen. At the Horseshoe Bay terminal, black loops hold the dark pilings together. Isabelle walks off the ferry with the other passengers, carrying the hatbox with the Yoshito urn inside. The freshly painted restored dancehall community centre assumes pride of place on the rise above the wharf. The shadow of the bluff darkens the road as she crosses the causeway; a lot of concrete on the cement bridge has worn away. The lagoon is lower than she’s ever seen it. Not a swan in sight. The honeysuckle and wild rose arbour trail is blocked off by a no trespassing sign, the demolished hotel replaced with a nearby luxury home. The corner Deluxe is gone. She has to detour around the area where the greenhouse used to stand. The tide is out so she takes the beach way along the slanted path up from Pebbley to meet the upper road past Millers Landing. She’s tired and hot when she finally stands on the edge of the Scarborough house pit formed by the scooped out mass of waterlogged rubble. Over at the sheds—at least they’re still standing—she pulls back the grapevine growing through the paneless frame to reach in and unlatch the door. Once inside, she carefully takes the urn from the hatbox and lifts it to a shelf where she finds a dirty but intact identical urn where she was intending to leave hers. She leaves the two of them side by side, then starts back for the ferry.

  No one’s at home when Maya gets back from day camp. Small carved zucchini statues line up on the kitchen table like finger puppets; she sits down forlornly and changes them from place to place as if arranging soldiers for a parade. Tags her hand down the row of dresses in her mother’s closet like rat-a-tatting a stick along a garden fence. A seagull shimmies its wings closed on top of a street lamp as the sun rolls over the tall elm, shining like a hot penny. Falls asleep on the couch, stripes of light between the venetian blinds slanting down the wall.

  Eugene’s rented Corvette pulls up at the curb. He comes up the stairs, relaxed in his tan chinos and a polo shirt with an alligator over his heart. Maya leaps up and rushes into his arms. Even if it’s too babyish a thing to do, she stands on his shoes so he can’t take a step without taking her with him.

  Where’s your mother?

  At work.

  Dad! Jenny comes pounding up the stairs and hugs him around the waist.

  Lucky I came a day early, eh? I tried to phone, but there was no answer. Isn’t that what you say here, eh? Eh?

  Very funny, Dad, says Jenny.

  Half an hour later, Isabelle’s yoo-hooing at the door, and Maya’s dragging her down the hall to meet her Dad. So you’re the famous Auntie who knew how to make island paradises for small girls? he says.

  I did?

  That’s what I heard.

  When Gwen comes in, Eugene kisses her cheek. He’s thinner, the same only different. Narrower neck with wrinkles. It’s necks that give people away. Eyes stay the same. Browner, even. She’s not going to say Jenny was supposed to be covering in case Isabelle’s ferry and bus didn’t connect. What could be more important than saving face in front of your Dad? This is nice, Eugene says, admiring the panel work in the living room and the fireplace. She thought he’d like it. At the kitchen table, Maya leans her chin on folded hands, and refuses to take her eyes off him. Jenny’s at the mirror in the hall pulling at her hair. It’s all matted, that’s the problem, Dad. I keep my tension in my hair. I still can’t hear out of this ear.

  It’s dangerous that loud music. Don’t you wear earplugs?

  Mad Dog was lonely, she says. If he wants us to lay our heads on the stage, we lay our heads on the stage.

  At supper, when Eugene picks up the pepper mill, Maya tells him he has to turn the handle to get the pepper to come out. All weekend, the girls will announce what they’re doing or about to do and watch to make sure he’s paying attention. Isabelle says she’s going down to Cambie to buy some impatiens to replace the petunias.

  I want to study about birds, says Maya.

  Do you? Eugene says, and she lays her head on his shoulder. I love you, Maya.

  I love you too, Dad.

  When Auntie gets back and is kneeling besides the front stairs troweling in the impatiens, Shima drives up in her Volvo. She gets out and comes around the fender, smart and trim in a seersucker suit. Says hello to Isabelle as if she’s the gardener, then starts up the scuffed stairs. Inside, she slips off her jacket, lets her strapped wedgies fall on the floor as she flops into an armchair. Gwen can feel Eugene thinking, who do we have here? When Gwen introduces them, Shima leans back and stretches her arms along the top of the sofa. Hello, Eugene. Has anybody ever told you you look a lot like Jenny Kerr?

  Rumour has it. How do you do, Shima?

  I do very well, she says. That is, if someone would pour me a drink.

  He obliges too quickly, but never mind, never mind, sits down as casually as if he lived there, holding the bottle between his knees to pull the cork.

  Shima’s a lawyer, Gwen says proudly. She’s working on the redress issue for Japanese Canadians who lost their property during the war. How much has she told Eugene about Scarborough after that one time he was there? Precious little, actually. She wasn’t expecting Shima tonight, not that she always phones when she drops over. She’s been waiting for the right moment to tell Auntie about her—she’ll be thrilled that the first of the long-lost Yoshitos has turned up. When Shima stands up, she’s so thin that from the side she’s almost a silhouette. I want you to meet my aunt, Shima, Gwen says. I’ll go outside and get her. She goes out but can’t find her. Calls, but no answer. She must be down the lane or something.

  Do you know, Shima says, opening her briefcase when Gwen comes back in. We’ve finally managed to get the government files opened and found out that some of the RCMP didn’t think the evacuation was necessary. She passes the document to Gwen who’s helping build a filing system for her.

  It was pretty bad in the States too, Eugene says.

  Shima sits up at attention on the couch. Your citizens didn’t have their property sold and confiscated to pay for their own internment. Removing citizens’ rights was legal because of the War Measures Act. After the War Measures Act, do you know what we had? The National Emergency Transitional Powers Act, you didn’t have that in the States. Then the Continuation of the National Emergency Transitional Powers Act. People weren’t allowed to come back to the coast for half a decade after the war was over.

  I didn’t know that, says Eugene. I thought it was the same as in the States. Jenny strums her fingers on the table and beseeches the ceiling. My Dad’s here. Shut up about it for once.

  Eugene’s face brightens when he looks at Shima, the way it always does when he’s attracted to someone. No more politics, Jenny shouts like a newsboy hollering a headline. Did you know that Johnny Rotten really loves his parents, Dad? Well, he does. She pushes him down the back steps into the garden with Maya following, thrusts a croquet mallet at him, another at Shima who’s changed into short shorts of all things. Shima and Eugene declare the game a tie and retire to the grapevine arbour while Jenny resets the wickets. Isabelle’s come back from gathering chamomile in the lane and comes in the gate but they don’t see her. A lot of people want to forget about the internment because they don’t think they have a prayer of restitution, Shima’s saying. Take my father. He never talks about it. He’s given up, suppressed all of it. Imagine living in hiding on the coast and surviving in a shack eating fish and deer all that time. If someone hadn’t shown up and told him the war was over, who knows when he would have found out. He wasn’t allowed back in B.C. so he went to Blaine and that’s where he found me with Lottie Fenn.

  And you
r mother?

  My mother’s dead.

  Back inside the house, Jenny, resplendent in tulle and logging-shirt plaid, is ready to take her parents—together at last—down to the Smiling Buddha. Before they leave, Gwen goes down to Isabelle’s room, thinking her aunt’s probably come in the basement door. When she knocks, there’s no answer. Opens the door, but she’s not there. Has anyone seen Auntie? she says coming back up the stairs.

  Who? says Shima.

  My aunt was here. I want you to meet her. She was in the garden. She was supposed to be keeping Maya company tonight.

  It’s okay. I’ll hang out with Maya, says Shima. You people have a good time.

  On Hastings, a gloating Jenny insists Eugene’s hand into hers as they pass a pawnshop and are about to turn into the club. Her father asks her to hold still, crouches and places his palms either side of her calf to straighten the seams in her stockings. It’s all right, Dad, she says. It doesn’t matter if they’re straight. Inside the seedy club, Jenny shows her parents to a rickety ice cream parlour table on the edge of the mosh pit, seats them as politely as a maître’d and smiles back at them as she joins her friends. The band lands with a crash of scraped brakes. Eugene shouts over the violence of the music. What’s she doing here, Gwen? For christsake, she’s one step away from the heroin addicts on the street. Half of these kids are on something. Do they know she’s under age? Is she on drugs?

  You try asking her, Eugene. She’s got some smart-ass reply every time. Well, we’re not smoking pot if that’s what you mean.

  She’s getting far too much freedom, he says.

  I don’t want her to run with this crowd, but I don’t know what to do. If I try to ground her, she’ll leave. I can’t have that.

  You took them here, his look says, but they both know how the fight will go if they start, so they stop.

  Gwen’s gaze snags on a young man and woman who spot each other across the floor, open their arms and fold into each other with such certainty and tenderness it’s as if they’ve been meeting forever and for the first time all at once. He whispers something in her ear that appeals to her so much she rises to him with a smile that wants to spread past the corners of her mouth, but her mouth can’t stretch any further, so she buries her face in his collarbone. Her narrow hand caresses the back of his limp khaki shirt. That girl, whoever she is, Gwen thinks, is capable of serious and abiding love. She looks again and realizes it’s Jenny.

  She’s too young, Gwen, says Eugene. She’s way too young.

  At home, Shima’s sleepy but still awake, kisses each of them goodnight and leaves. Point me to a bed, Eugene says, and Gwen opens her hand at the couch.

  Still no Auntie. Where could she be?

  59.

  When Ada sees Isabelle coming down the street, she stands up from her gardening pad and brushes off the knees of her slacks. Looks at the bulbs she’s planting as if she wants to eat them. Isabelle stalks through the gap in the laurel hedge, so upset you’d think she’d seen her beloved ahead of her on the street, was comforted by the fact he’d looked back, then realized he was checking to make sure she wasn’t following him.

  I’ve been at Gwen’s, Ada. I can’t believe what you did. I cannot believe it. My daughter was there. I overheard her talking about her father. She thinks I’m dead. For God’s sake, she thinks I’m dead.

  The chairs on the Blenheim St. lawn beg for conversation. Come and sit down, Isabelle, please. Isabelle stands as if turned to a pillar of salt, then screams at her sister. Can you imagine how you’d feel? Can you imagine?

  I did the wrong thing. I know that now. I thought it was for the best.

  For God’s sake, you didn’t tell me about my only chance at happiness in this world? Don’t come near me. Just answer my questions. Does Gwen know?

  You’ve forgotten what it was like, Isabelle. They would have taken the baby away and sent her to a camp somewhere. If not, both of you would have had to live with people shaming you all the time.

  You mean you would have had to live with people shaming you all the time. It should have been my decision. It’s unbelievable. I’ve had to live with your lie all this time. I will never ever forgive you! What exactly does Gwen know?

  Ada wipes off her trowel. Only that Takumi is Shima’s father, which is why she was angling to bring Shima into the Scarborough house as an equal partner for free.

  Good for Gwen, says Isabelle. And what’s this about Lottie Fenn looking after her in Blaine?

  I don’t know anything about that.

  Oh come on.

  I really don’t. Lottie was going to take care of adoption arrangements. Shima knows her?

  Lottie helped raise her.

  I had no idea. Ada sits on the front stairs.

  When did Takumi find Shima? How old was she?

  I don’t know, Isabelle. If you’d come down off your high horse and try for one moment to see one iota of how other people might have been feeling…

  You didn’t respect me enough to discuss this with me?

  You wouldn’t have listened.

  Why would I have listened? You did a terrible thing. It’s going to take me the rest of my life to put it to rights.

  At least you know Shima and her father are both alive.

  You’d do anything to save face, wouldn’t you, Ada? Some sister you are. All I know is that how Shima finds out is everything. Don’t you dare say one word to Shima or Gwen. Or to Lottie Fenn. You’re not to have anything more to do with Lottie Fenn. How could she have gone along with this?

  She didn’t know I told you the baby was dead. I haven’t even met Shima.

  Does Dad know? asks Isabelle.

  Not as far as I know. Where are you going Isabelle?

  Everyone was asleep when she got back to 20th Ave. She packed her bag, called a taxi and left a note for Gwen saying she’d call. Something’s come up, she wrote. If she said anything more, she’d be putting Gwen in the position of asking her not to say anything to Shima. She’s alive, that’s all she can think about. Astonishingly, Laburnum St. is the only place she feels she can cope, and she wants to be with her father.

  Her dad’s in the same bed he was in when Isabelle came to him from White Rock that long-ago Christmas. He’s too old to get up; someone comes in every day. When Isabelle calls up the stairs, he thinks it’s the homemaker. When he turns to her, his pale eyes leak.

  You know, he says.

  She looks at him. So do you.

  Just be with me a while, he says. Can you do that?

  I can do that, Dad.

  I was at the cottage, he says. Lottie came by. Do you know, she was in Blaine the whole time we were wondering about her place. I wanted to wait until you came to see me, not push myself at you. Not push myself at you ever again.

  Did Lottie tell you about Shima, Dad? Have you met her?

  No. I want to.

  She’s beautiful. I don’t want to do anything to startle her if she thinks I’m dead. I’ve been dead. I’m not now.

  I didn’t mean not to have faith in you. I just worried…

  I know, Dad. It’s okay.

  60.

  Lottie’s uninsulated orchard cottage is as cold as her old place; it stays damp and clammy all year round. She’s chopping kindling when Isabelle comes up the path. The two of them pick up the firewood, sit in the kitchen on low stools and feed the stove even though it’s still summer.

  I’ve found out about Shima, Lottie, Isabelle says. They told me she was dead. She saw me at Gwen’s place but didn’t know who I was. I overheard her telling Gwen’s ex that Takumi survived the war hiding out up Narrows Inlet. She said she lived with you when she was little.

  I kept expecting to hear from you, Isabelle. Ada told me she was going to tell you I’d be taking care of adoption arrangements. I didn’t know until Derek’s memorial that you’d been told the baby died.

  I don’t know how I’ll be able to be in the same room with Ada ever again, Isabelle says. Maybe Takumi told her I
’d died to protect her, stop her from trying to find me if he thought I’d abandoned her. Oh God, he thought I abandoned her. He must have. She starts to cry. It wasn’t you who told the police officers then?

  Lottie shakes her head. No. It might have been my brother. When Shima was little, I came to the city to find you but heard you were married, and I didn’t know whether you’d left the baby on purpose. Then Frederick and I found the dress you made for her.

  I am married, says Isabelle. But this is about Shima. You’re telling me that Takumi came to Blaine? Right near where I’ve been living all this time?

  Yes. Lottie goes to the sideboard, gets out a picture of Takumi and Shima holding ping-pong bats.

  Oh, I love this. Is she in touch with you? May I borrow this and get it copied?

  Of course you can. Takumi keeps in touch; he’s been good to me. For some reason, he feels as if he has to guess something to win Shima back.

  Where is he?

  In Prince Rupert. He’s a fisherman. Has had some success as a sculptor, actually.

  Has he? Is he well?

  He says he’s fine. I don’t really know.

  What was she like? The baby? Shima?

  Tender, and always, I don’t know, can you say level-headed about a baby, but she was.

  But what can I say to her?

  What about the dress in the drawer in the cottage? Frederick and I found it. What if we showed it to her?

  Isabelle looks surprised, then relieved, as if coming to a fork in the road she hadn’t recognized until she was standing at the crossroads. I didn’t know I knew what I was doing, but I guess I did.